C. elegans is a real animal and we set out to understand how it comes to have its distinctive biogeography. Its ancestral center of diversity is in the higher elevation forests of Hawaii. Its closest relatives are spread across east Asia. Did they travel from Asia? [Preprint 🧵]

We have a new paper out in Molecular Ecology, led by @devinbendixsen.bsky.social ! Reproductive isolation due to divergent ecological selection is accompanied by vast genomic instability in experimentally evolved yeast populations onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Breaking genetics news‼️🌱🌽 A natural DNA trick triples recombination in maize. What we first saw in Arabidopsis (@hendersi lab) a decade ago is now confirmed in crops—opening new doors for plant breeding. Published today in Nature Plants! More details 👉 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

The GRFP lives!! (due end of October) www.nsf.gov/funding/oppo...

We often talk about THE whole genome duplication in yeasts, but we find new evidence of additional whole genome duplications in other yeast species! Check out this preprint led by @kylethedavid.bsky.social www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Early view: we find that brown anole lizards are one of, if not the most, lead tolerant vertebrates known to science combining measures of field exposure, responses to lab dosing, performance assays and functional genomics. Led by PhD student Annelise Blanchette www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

The Department of Botany and Plant Pathology at Oregon State University is Hiring!

My department @utoronto.ca (www.utm.utoronto.ca/biology/) is hiring a molecular biologist in any field (e.g., ecology, evolutionary biology, etc.). Please encourage any excellent finishing PhD students, postdocs or assistant professor to apply here: jobs.utoronto.ca/job/Mississa...

IMPORTANT IMPORTANT IMPORTANT IMPORTANT Please watch the workshop video and COMMENT by 5:00 Monday 7/14 This is the source of the "no more model organism only grants in NIH-funded research" decree.

Yay Aldo and team!

NC State at #Evol2025!

Another day testing the limits of resilience. The Alexandria NSF building was designed for the NSF merit review process (gold standard), complete with a floor devoted to panels. Now we aren’t allowed to have in person panels. The loss of US science leadership will haunt this country for decades.

The #SCIMaP team announces a major update: an analysis of the economic impacts of the White House's NIH FY26 budget. Bottom-line, we estimate $46B in total economic loss, 202K lost jobs, and impacts in communities nationwide. Interactive map and shareable report: scienceimpacts.org/fy26 a 🧵

Olivia Reidling of the @rokaslab.bsky.social explores the global 🌏 diversity of Aspergillus fungi w/ machine learning She finds high taxon richness in human-associared plant classes The resulting taxon distribution prediction align with known biological features (acidity etc) #Evol2025 #Evol25

Jacqueline Peña @jjpena-ecoevo.bsky.social asks if humans 👥🍺🍷🍞 left an impact on wild yeast 🌳 They estimate that S. cerevisiae spread across the global after the last glacial maximum Looks like wild strains are NOT independent of human movement Lab of @dbensasson.bsky.social #Evol2025 #Evol25

The @sse-evolution.bsky.social public policy committee is organizing folks to send postcards to Congress from #Evol2025, stop by the booth in the exhibition hall

"Science depends on K-12 education." Kenneth Miller #Evol2025 The Scopes Symposium was excellent and timely.

Caiti Smukowski Heil @caitismuheil.bsky.social tells us about th domestication of yeast in bread 🍞 Humans have made a profound impact on the genome of S. cerevisiae And commercial baking strains are super weird! #Evol2025 #Evol25

I'm excited to share our lab's work on genomics of yeast in your favorite foods and beverages at #Evol2025! Today at 5:15 in Athena A, I'm talking about domestication of baking strains of S. cerevisiae.

Hi! Do you want to rip your face off over the constant attacks on science in the US? Here are some actions you can take! They require varying amounts of time, repetitiveness, and sticking your neck out, so hopefully you can find something in here that’s right for you: 🧪 #scicomm

🚨 A new rule would let career scientists like NSF/NIH program officers be replaced by political appointees Already 14,000+ public comments, deadline is Friday 📣 Comments can be short. Courts consider them—and scientists with NSF/NIH experience are especially impactful Speak up! shorturl.at/WKuBj

Join SSE, @asn-amnat.bsky.social & @systbiol.bsky.social in a Week of Action for NSF! Call and write congress and engage with colleagues, friends and family about the importance of NSF funding! Our Media Tool can help you get started: shorturl.at/i7WfU #WithoutNSF #SaveNSF #SupportNSF

The rest of Mendel's alleles characterized! So, out of 7 traits, 3 caused by TE insertions!!! (though apparently there are two different green alleles, one cause by a TE insertion, but another a promoter deletion allele) www.nature.com/articles/s41...

My friend's student asks me to share: The administration is trying to destroy the Endangered Species Act from within. Public commenting is basically the only way to thwart this rule before getting to court. If you have a few minutes to comment: www.regulations.gov/commenton/FW...

🧪 Our Terminated NSF Grant Tracker is live 🧪 🔴 114 NSF grants listed so far 🔴 Cancelled grants focused on → Training scientists → Misinformation → AI → Climate change Credit to @noamross.net for all the work to build this & to all PIs who submitted their info. Link: airtable.com/appGKlSVeXni...

The NC State AAUP chapter calls on our chancellor, who has been conspicuously silent on the myriad of attacks on higher ed, to stand up for our international students. Our students deserve better. I encourage all faculty to join the @aaup.bsky.social. www.technicianonline.com/opinion/gues...

A graduate student in chemical engineering at North Carolina State University is one of an uncertain but growing number of international students in the US on visas that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has abruptly revoked. cen.acs.org/policy/Scien... 🧪 #chemsky #phdsky #academicsky

Aneuploidy is the leading cause of pregnancy loss. In work led by @saracarioscia.bsky.social and @aabiddanda.bsky.social, we reanalyzed genetic testing data from 139,416 IVF embryos to discover variants associated with recombination phenotypes and aneuploidy risk. www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1...

Check out PhD student Kaleb Goff's thread about his new publication in @esajournals.bsky.social Ecosphere!

Just received the email that my recent appointment to a BSC, which was supposed to be until June 2029, was terminated effective immediately.

Opinion | Banning DEI Is Catastrophic for U.S. Science An attack on DEI is an attack on science itself, Joseph L. Graves Jr., Stacy C. Farina, Parvin Shahrestani, Vaughn S. Cooper and Gilda A. Barabino write. #HigherEd #EDUSky #AcademicSky bit.ly/4l569c2

Link here- www.sujobopps.com/postings/108... Please get in touch if you are interested!

First up is @adaigle.bsky.social's preprint where we use Drosophila genomes that have been sequenced with both short and long reads to train a machine learning method to more accurately detect and genotype transposable element insertions: doi.org/10.1101/2025...

Cool new work! Some lineages experiencing ancient whole-genome duplications seem to hold on to their duplicate genes for a really long time & keep accumulating homoeologous exchange events! Runs counter to early models where gene loss is expected to be rapid post-WGD academic.oup.com/gbe/advance-...

Really excited to say that my lab's paper on color transitions in Mimulus sect. Erythranthe is out! We found that some traits demonstrate evolutionary convergence in phenotype & genotype, while others are divergent, & that - as Bob Vickery found - bees prefer yellow! www.nature.com/articles/s41...

This is very nice!

I’m very proud and happy to share the first paper of my PhD with @millanek.bsky.social that is now published in the latest issue of the journal Evolution @journal-evo.bsky.social. academic.oup.com/evolut/artic...

Apply by March31 for the 2025 Yeast Genetics and Genomics Course Jul22–Aug12 www.yeastgenome.org/blog/apply-n... This year’s instructors –Grant Brown, Soni Lacefield @lacefieldlab.bsky.social, and Greg Lang– have designed a comprehensive course covering all things yeast from genetics to genomics!

I'm appalled by the USDA's decision to pause funding to the University of Maine System. This will hurt our farmers, halt critical research, and impact students throughout Maine. Once again, our state is being targeted for retribution—all because our officials are standing up for the rule of law.

I have confirmation from several sources now that all T32s, many F30s and F31s, and most or all Center awards (P30, P50) have been terminated at Columbia. This is quite damaging to research and to individuals. This is pure terrorism and cannot be legal. But litigation will take time...

Amazing opportunity!

Lots of NC scientists #StandUpforScience in Raleigh! Thanks to my son for help with my poster 🥰👩‍🔬

🧪🚨 NSF's Directorate for STEM Education (EDU) has halted making nearly all new awards since inauguration day. Among *many* other things, EDU runs the Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP). We need to protect the education & training of the next gen of scientists #StandUpForScience Thread👇🧵

Need extra funds to help cover costs of caring for someone while you attend #Evol2025? Apply by March 15 for the SSE Caregiver Award - up to $500 US. Funds can be used as the awardee wishes to facilitate attendance virtually or in-person. buff.ly/4ayQxbG @evolmtg.bsky.social

shared a bit of my experiences being trans in STEM a bit ago, excited to see the article out! and cis folks: the statistics here are from *before* the current dumpster fire, just for context. so just imagine for a second how much worse things are now www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Yesterday proved why North Carolina needs an Attorney General who can challenge unlawful executive orders. We won an injunction against an order that would have cut hundreds of millions in research funding from our public universities and research institutions.

Details on the science march in Raleigh!

⚠️ Effective Monday 2/10/25, NIH indirect rate capped at 15%. Applies to existing & future grants. —> Deep budget cuts & program closures coming to a university near you. Is this the break the glass moment for university administrators who have been silent so far about the attack on science?